Preview – Caracal F

What is a Caracal? It’s a desert cat. What is a Caracal F? It’s a 9mm 18-round semi-automatic polymer-framed pistol that is striker-fired. Why do you care? Simple — because it works, and we beat the hell out of one just to make sure it did.

Wilhelm Bubits invented the Caracal F. Does that name ring a distant bell for you? It did for us. He is a former Austrian customs inspector, who also taught at the Austrian Customs Academy. However, it was his working with Glock and his eventual design of the Steyr M series pistols that makes him stand out to us. There is certainly more than a hint of resemblance between the Caracal F and the Steyr, with the Caracal F looking like the slightly hotter younger sibling.

In 2003, Mr. Bubits took his skills as a small-arms designer to the United Arab Emirates, where he worked with a team to design, develop, and manufacture the weapon now known as the Caracal F. Manufacturing started in the United Arab Emirates and expanded to Suhl, Germany, in 2011. The Caracal pistol entered military service in 2007, when 25,000 9mm Caracal F models were ordered for use in the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Jordan.

We were able to lay our hands on two different Caracal F pistols. The first one is ours and has a traditional sighting system. We did some trading for this one, so we had no qualms at all about using and abusing this blaster. The second Caracal F belongs to Darrion Holiwell of Praetor Defense. We’ve known him for about a decade, and he has broken or worn out more pistols than most guys we know put together. He has a heavy shooting regimen that grinds some weapons down. His brand-new pistol already had more than 2,500 rounds through it when the idea of the article came up. His pistol is the Quick Sights version. We’ll talk more about the different sights later, but the easiest way to tell the difference here is that his is black and ours met up with Captain Krylon in the middle of the night.